


Remains

by Red_Cross_Roads (Scarlet_Nin)



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt, Suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:47:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22931248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet_Nin/pseuds/Red_Cross_Roads
Summary: Humanity had many sins. But the most unforgiving sin was committed by the Clan of Noah.
Relationships: Nea D. Campbell & Mana Walker
Kudos: 11





	Remains

**_“Monster!”_ **

**_“Freak!”  
_ **

**_“T H E 14TH.”_ **

**_“Murderer!”_ **

**_“Mistake.”_ **

**_“Psychopath.”_ **

Every word is meant to hurt. To cut him and make him bleed until he’s back in that alleyway, leaning against the crumbling wall with broken legs wondering if the breath he takes with a sickening wheeze of desperation will be the last one he’ll take before he bleeds out in agony, all alone.

Dying at the hands of his brother like his mother had—

—But those kinds of flimsy insults are nothing but amusing to him. Seeing the spite and fear mingling on the faces of those lesser than him, who think they have a right to speak of him, _to_ him, while knowing nothing, is downright laughable.

**_~~(They know. Of what he’s done and yet they still speak.)~~ _ **

**_~~(He would have been impressed if they weren’t so annoying.)~~ _ ** ~~~~

But it’s a game he’s good at playing. Twisting words until they’re sharp enough to bleed from people’s ears, making those with a voice fall silent in doubt. Those without knowledge are easy to crush if one knows how to play their hands and Nea never missed hitting a single note.

Except once.

_“Nea…?”_

_Mana’s voice is straining, the way it is after a nightmare, shaken and so fragile. Face washed white, the grin which will haunt him for the nights to come is absent in the face of his brother’s tear-eyed confusion._

_Lowering his sword, he takes a step forward. Hesitating for a split second as Mana rushes forward to meet him halfway, arms opening for an embrace—_

_“Mana…”_

**_(Ba-dump!)_ **

**_(Ba-dump!)_ **

**_(Ba-dump—Ba-dump!)_ **

_—The hand settling on the nape of his neck, stroking his skin is cold._

_Colder than ice in the way terror washes over him as Mana hums, soothingly._

_Body rigid in the hold, he coughs at the lack of air in his lungs, as the hand playing with the ends of his hair pushes him against the slender throat beating so hot against his cheek. The touch seeps the strength from his bones, fingers going slack._

**_(Ba—dump! Ba—Dump…Ba-…dump_ ** _.)_

_His sword clatters to the soiled ground—_

_—breath constricting in his throat—_

_—Blood drips from his chin._

**_His brother coos, a sound causing chills to creep up his spine as his hot breath hits the shell of his ear. The feather drills piercing his flesh twist inside his wounds as Mana nuzzles into his neck._ **

**_“My beloved Nea—"_ **

Never again.

From the first moment he woke up after all these years in that lake…

_~~(Cold. Ice cold.~~ _

_~~It bites at his skin, the cold,~~ _

_~~he will never be warm again—~~ _

_~~it hurts--)~~ _

…there has been no doubt inside his mind of his mission. Such a moment of weakness has ceased to exist together with the remains of his body. A body which has been spit out for the use of another.

**_“That reincarnated form of yours…I could laugh and spite up the food I ate.”_ **

Finding humor in morbid situation has always been Mana’s forte and in a world like theirs Nea found a way to enjoy the irony as well. His Allen must be laughing at him right now, quick to point out the flaws in his plans as he was, there’s no doubt to the echo of the voice chiding him for losing focus of what’s important.

_~~(Never stop…Never doubt,~~ _

_~~Because if you do, there won’t be anything left inside your heart to hold onto.)~~ _

“Nothing is as it should be…” Hair too pale, face bare save for the ugly red marking branding the skin, Nea hums wordlessly the tune of a melody long forgotten as he traces letters onto the mirror with nimble fingers. “…But that’s fine. I’ll make it right. Just wait for me, oh brother of mine, I’ll come to rescue you from the cruel fate God has bestowed upon us.”

**_Even if I have to kill you._ **

Smearing the trail of red across the glass surface, he watches a foreign smile cross the familiar face. Wrong, a truly horrid sight when one knows the original of what has once been real and Nea finds himself frowning at his reflection. Using the normal hand, he tugs at the strands of hair falling into his face and makes a face.

“Disgusting,” Far too light for his taste. Like clouds, invisible to the world, a fleeting occurrence of movement across the sky before they vanish like they have never been present in the first place. No life left as the color and energy has been sucked out to be used as fuel for a weapon who only knows how to break. “But fitting I guess.”

Letting go of the hair strand, taking a step back to lean against the wall to listen for the flap of wings he knows won’t come, he exhales. He tries to recollect his thoughts to make order inside the whirlwind inside his mind. His head hurts. A stabbing pain drilling against the edges of his skull using it as a spring board to bounce around haunts him. Coming to think of it again, despite the healing of the weirdo with the attitude, his body aches. Risking a glance at the mirror again, he sees no signs of battle on his skin—

_“How about it…you come back with us, enjoy some dinner and then we’ll talk about “what” you are, Fourteenth?”_

Mirror shattering into pieces at the comb thrown at it, Nea grits his teeth at the gall of the man daring to breath inside that body. Resentment burns itself through his blood, boiling it to the point the skin outside flushes a healthy dose of color, hot and heavy and all-consuming in the way it sets his body on fire.

No word has ever hurt more than the word “Family”.

A lie, bold enough in its intensity to shatter lesser men when the truth surfaces. Destructive enough it had broken Mana to pieces not even he could put back together to make it whole again. And how he tried to do just that but in the end it wasn’t enough. Could never be enough as Mana fell deeper into the pit of despair than Nea could try to pull him out of. Not when he was the cause. Their world of lies had crumbled beneath them as if the earth itself couldn’t carry their weight anymore and Mana had fallen with it. The word stings on his tongue, a bitterness coating his insides as black as old blood and he still remembers the day something in him snapped like a violin chord being pulled too tight and ripping in the middle. The screech of the dying instrument he used to enjoy drowning out the screams of death.

**_Creation and Destruction, two parts of the same whole…_ **

**_I, the one who has been said to destroy everything…_ **

**_It all makes sense now._ **

**_Lips quirking into a mirthless smile, Nea laughs._ **

**_“The reason of your hatred…that cursed pillar…no wonder. How shallow of you.”_ **

**_Pulling at the ends of his hair, body shaking with tremors, he laughs until he’s dizzied from the lack of air, tears forming in the corner of his eyes. Crazy, he’s going mad with not a single thought inside his head._ **

**_His head had never felt clearer than in that moment. Ripping along the seams of his mind, the nail sealing his coffin hits him right in the heart._ **

* * *

_“You’ll die if you continue this!”_

_Tears blurring his vision to the point he can see nothing more than blotchy specks of colors, Nea laughs. A brittle, rattling sound old doors make while slamming shut in the storm with rain pattering against the wood._

_“I already did.” He spits the words out like venom and cracks a smile when the body beneath his feet stills._

_“Or rather, I will, but you don’t care about that, do you?”_

_None of them did. Except for Road, perhaps, but she’s far away, cursing his name._

_Her dream shattered while she’s reliving her worst nightmare._

_Smiling, Nea raises his blade, like a Damocles sword hanging upon them all and gives the wide-eyed ashen face beneath him a hollow grin._

_“Want to know what it felt like?”_

_Without waiting for a reply, he swings. Blood coats his coat a murky brown, making it heavier to bear as his tears wash away the dirt on his face like rain running down the window glass._

_Regret is absent in the face of their demises. Yet like a tree losing all its leaves, Nea can’t deny the burning inside his chest. Oxygen is lacking inside his lungs, lips quivering, he chokes on words better left unsaid._

**_~~Eleven down~~ _ **

**_~~Two more to go.~~ _ **

How laughable the notion of love is!

“What have you done to yourself Mana? To us?”

“Even now, after all this time, you’re still hurting yourself.” Closing his eyes, the image of a childish chuckle fills his ears. The soft texture of wheat brushing against his fingers, the burning gold of the sunset filling his vision, the wind swaying his hair, he treasures that memory above anything else.

A time where they were happy.

Something which couldn’t last.

_“I will always stay right by your side…”_

“You’re trying to fill that void inside your chest with delusional visions of your own happiness but you’re only spiraling deeper into the pit of your own despair. Tell me, Mana, would you be happier with me by your side as a reminder of all the things you’ve lost?”

Knowing his brother, he would. Seeing the readiness of Mana’s to embrace him, the hands keeping hold of his coat like he might disappear if not held tight enough—

“No, no, no, no!” Slapping a hand to his forehead, he shakes his head with vigor. “None of that! If I lose myself inside the memories it’ll all go to waste! Damn you, Mana!”

_(Making me hesitate at a time like this!_

_Damn you to hell for loving me.)_

“I swore on that day, I would leave both, my heart and my doubt behind to accomplish what must be done.” Swallowing past the bile rising in his throat, he clenches his hand into a fist drawing blood. “I will not hesitate this time.”

_Not even for you._

_Especially, not for you!_

“The plan is set into motion. Now, all I need to do is wait. Cross’s supposed death is quite the inconvenience at a time like this, but it matters not.”

_After all, in the end what shall be done will happen._

_You cannot go against the fate of the world…_

_No matter how much you wish to, Road._

“What a mistake you’ve made these years ago,” Chuckling as his back slides down the wall, he sits on the floor, ignoring the grinning faces looming at him from the shattered pieces of the mirror. “I guess I can’t fault you for that. You’ve always been easy to fall prey to your own dreams while trying to outrun your personal nightmare.”

**_“I’m sorry, Nea.”_ **

**~~(~~ ** _~~Always, always apologizing—~~ _

_~~As if it means something in the face of their agony.~~ _

_~~Wounds torn into the soul will never heal.~~ _

_~~Not even in the face of your genuine misery of an apology~~ _ _._

_~~But that is the reason you’ve never asked for forgiveness from me, haven’t you?~~ _

_~~Knowing you won’t be granted such a thing. **)**~~ _

“Using my own words against Allen like that…Family is special indeed.”

Pulling his knees up to rest his head on them, he watches the dim-light of the bathroom illuminate the small space he’s hiding in. With the Exorcist gone out after having gotten a room at an Inn, there has been nothing left to do but mourn Tim’s absence. The tiles are cool against his bare feet, sensitive to the heat of his skin after getting worked up, running off now would be unwise.

“I wonder what they’ll think of all the blood on your hands.”

It’s drying now, crumbling at the edges and it’s a feeling he knows by heart yet still feels repulsed by. It itches but scratching it had never made it better, so he doesn’t even try, instead he titles his head at the stained walls painting them reddish brown instead of yellow and blinks.

“Huh.”

The blood is gone when he opens his eyes, the faces inside the shard’s reflections have vanished and all there’s left are bleeding shapes of his fingernails imprinted into his own skin. He’s still in his tattered clothes, shoulder dried of blood from where Mana’s drills had pierced him—

**_(Frozen in shock, not again, not again—_ **

**_—it hurts, so bad, fingers trembling as they grasp at the white feathers—)_ **

“My time’s up anyway, so who cares.” Nea grumbles, wrinkling his nose at the thought of going back into the whiteness to watch instead of breathing fresh air outside. A small price to pay considering to where things are heeding, still it does little to soothe his irritation.

“Next time, then. You won’t be so lucky to escape. So, wait for me Mana, soon you can rest.”

Becoming the Earl, killing the shell of his brother…the thought of the reactions of the Noah then, is enough to make him giddy. The horror on their faces when the truth is finally revealed like the curtain falling at the end of the show—

_Soon,_ Nea promises as he slips away into the cracks of a broken mind, _soon this will all end. Just as it should be._


End file.
